[Hook x2]
Summer breeze, flowing like the wind
Boy you need to know that you got a friend
And I'll always be here (I'll always be here)

[Verse 2]
Now I'm growing some fuzz, getting older like 17 or 18
And the only thing I know is to stay clean
T-shirt, short pants, Nikes on spotless
I was even old enough to buy me a Cutlass
Or a vehicle to ride around town, flirt with the hoes and
Roll down the window and mack to the one who's chosen
Yo, them biker pants look kinda right on you
My name is DJ Quik and my homies is having a barbeque
Before I finish my whole sentence complete
Yo she was off the bus stop and in my passenger seat
And we was sliding to the Westside, stopped at the store
To get some Boones Farm because that make 'em kick it a little more
And at the spot, you know that chicken was kicking
The pig on the grill, and so the day was chill
But that night, my girl was tipsy and was ready to skeeze
But I didn't even trip, too busy jocking the summer breeze

[Hook x2]

[Verse 3]
Now I'm 23 and I remember the times when
We was chillin' like villians and didn't have no nines
Like when we used to mob to beaches to kick it and swim
Now I hang around and watch the tides come in
And I'm thinking how many funerals I've been to
Watching all my homies get buried in them boxes they put 'em into
And then I read a letter from upstate
From my homie G-Wayne, who's been locked up since '87, '88
And it really ain't nothing fly about it
So either I'mma stay strong or break down and simply cry about it
And when it seem like things just ain't gon be right
I gotta thank my creator for letting me sleep last night
And waking me up in the morn because I shutter to think
That that could be me dead or locked away in the clink
So I'm lifting my homie's spirits as tall as the trees
And I can even hear him calling me, in the summer breeze

[Hook until fade]

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About “Summer Breeze”

Quik captures the essence of summertime with this ballad about his summer activities in the different stages of his life. .

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What have the artists said about the song?

DJ Quik: “I was a big fan of Philadelphia International. One of my boys had this guy who sang like Teddy a little bit—not really, nobody could sing like Teddy—but one of them churchy voices.

“I figured, if we can get away with the sample—if we can clear it or whatever—let’s sample it, freak it, give it that thing. Because before that, the only other thing that got sampled by Teddy was ‘Love TKO’ with Ahmad, ‘Back in the Day,’ released on Jive Records.

“That was back when Profile Records gave me a lot of leeway to experiment. But I prefer the original with the Jermaine Jackson drums and my boy Robert Bacon on the guitar. If you notice, all my records—even from the beginning—are tinged with death. I saw a lot of death.

I SAW SO MUCH DEATH I ENDED UP DRINKING TO SUPPRESS THAT SHIT. IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH. I FIGURED, HELL, I WASN’T THE ONLY ONE WHO GREW UP IN A NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE THAT SH*T WAS PROMINENT

“As a matter of fact, I saw so much death I ended up drinking to suppress that shit. It was just too much. I figured, hell, I wasn’t the only one who grew up in a neighborhood where that shit was prominent. Not so much in L.A., as it was in Compton. But it was what it was.

“‘Summer Breeze’ was like an obituary. It was dark, it was sullen. And kind of, in a sense, melancholy. But I always kept a bright-side kind of attitude when I did records like that. Obviously, I don’t do records like that anymore, because they’re passe. Everybody’s dying. Even I’m gonna die. I don’t give a fuck no more. We can talk about the next record.”